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Low-tech Inventions That Help Change Lives
angelaelle writes "The current issue of Popular Mechanics is featuring their Breakthrough Awards program for inventors. Some of the winning inventions help improve the living conditions for people in third world countries using low-tech materials and assembly methods. Technologies like this cookstove for people in Darfur, and in the case of this Windbelt developed by Shawn Frayne, could be used to provide cheap, clean energy alternatives. The website features fascinating, inspiring videos talking about the inventor's 'eureka moment', focusing on the inventor as well as the technology."
Provide countries with the simple necessities, and life will get easier and more productive.
Cheers
"You've got a chart filling a whole wall with interlocking pathways and reactions to shock and the researcher says "If I can just control this one molecule/enzyme/compound I'll stop the whole negative physiologic cascade of post haemorrhagic shock." Yeah, right."
One of my favorites was the water-pump that was essentially a spiral "drill" type shape enclosed in a tube. As you rotate the drill, it water in the spirals would be moved upwards through the pipe and - eventually - out the spout at the top.
My understanding was that it's a lot better than many of the bucket+rope configurations used with wells.
The links mentioned have heavy video on them. Thanks.
The Pot in pot refrigerator
A lot of these sorts of technologies were aggregated (PDF) by the Hexayurt folks. The hexayurt is itself one of these technologies. A roomy shelter costing just over $200, takes just a few hours to build, and has the R-value of a typical house.
http://hexayurt.com/
The condom should be at the top of that list...
The "high efficiency stove" is just a chimney starter using pots the right size to fully close the top. Yeah, I applaud them for trying to find ways to help, but these really aren't "inventions," just re-applications of existing items and concepts.
Printable http://www.eweek.com/print_article2/0,1217,a=216900,00.asp
HTH
Why UNIX?
I love the belt generator - simple, few moving parts, no bearings, etc. But it is far from new. I remember reading about such a device in a science fiction article back in the late 1960's. The real problem expressed in the story is that these things will make an awful lot of noise when they are scaled up in size or count to practical levels.
Have you ever tried to catch mice?
If you have, you will know how brilliant idea the normal mousetrap actually is. It's ridiculously cheap and efficient, and has practically remained the same for almost 100 years. Here is a link to the pantent:
http://inventors.about.com/od/weirdmuseums/ig/History-of-Mousetraps/James-Doubt---Mousetrap-Patent.htm
My master's degree is design of an appropriate technology vehicle -- turns out, the appropriate technology movement was abandoned, even to the point of making the phrase a faux-pas in the engineering community based on the idea that it provided mediocre solutions, and that the modern world was simply trying to placate the developing world with sub-par solutions. After projects like the OLPC however, I think it's become evident that applications of simple technology to problems that demand it deserve just as much attention. Giving someone who can't afford gasoline or buy spare car parts a car is like giving Robinson Caruso a cell phone where he can't get reception.
Quiz: True or False -- On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your middle name?
...the desired application is low cost, low consumption, lots of wind. Under those conditions, this device seems fine enough. Most of the Carribean recieves a pretty constant breeze year round, sometimes too much. So more area isn't much of an issue assuming efficiency is kept high enough to support the intended current draw.
Simple, cheap, not very dangerous, sounds like a winner.
Heybiff
Even the Sun goes down.
Read up on condoms. You'll find that they have also been made of lambskin and other materials. They are not necessarily high-tech.
here is an article about Shawn at MIT, in a class where they come up with this kind of stuff. Article is by Pagan Kennedy in the New York Times.
http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2004/10/65276
A MacGyver for the Third World
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aidg/612856202/in/set-72157600466239024/
flickr
http://instapundit.com/archives2/010388.php
instapundit is blogging the conference
http://www.aidg.org/component/option,com_jd-wp/Itemid,34/p,33/
some blog
Shawn Frayne is the founder of Haddock Invention LLC and its recent spin-off company, Humdinger Wind Energy, LLC. The mission of these companies is two-fold. First, to create technologies that can address long-standing problems in developing countries; and second, to leverage the novel aspects of those inventions through licensing deals in capital-rich nations such as the U.S., thereby generating a self-supporting revenue stream for the projects.
His work has so far focused in the fields of solar water disinfection, inflatable packaging, food preservation, charcoal-production, and wind power generation, with several products successfully licensed or sold. It was during his time as a student in MIT's D-Lab that Shawn first became convinced that the key inventions of the next century won't necessarily be born in wealthy countries. Rather, the new industries of the coming years will be founded on breakthrough technologies invented in Haiti or Zambia or Guatemala, where the hardest problems in the world will yield the greatest inventions.
I read an article some time ago which outlined a very low-tech way to help purify water in countries with high incidences of Malaria, Dysentery, etc. By painting the surface of huts/housing flat black and placing clear plastic water bottles on them for a few hours. The sun & UV help to kill off most parasites and biological pathogens quite effectively and at a price much cheaper than other filtration solutions. Nice low-tech solution which is cheap, effective, and requires no special equipment.
Do not taunt Happy-Fun Ball
You can't take the sky from me...
Yeesh... enough said.
So much great science could come from sifting through old peer reviewed literature and picking up where old scientists left off.
This nefarious landmine I wound not say has 'helped' but it surely has changed lives. Its a plastic mine very little metal content, inexpensive and is the most widely seeded mine in the world. This is the kind of change the world did not and should not ever have needed. Perhaps one day, a high tech soln can dispose of these low tech scourges. There has been a lot of progress but still, its the de-miner with the stick and a face shield that gets them out today.
People can do their part by using these personal conservation technologies in their own lives.
A few times a week, I set out a big pot of stew or chili or soup in my solar cooker. Even in the dead of winter, I come home to a hot meal at the end of the day. It Works. And it's awesome.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
It shouldn't. It's not something that is made by primitive techniques from low-tech materials. Clay pots are just that, condoms aren't. Unless, of course, you consider polyurithane a low-tech material.
Ah but as with many other things made today condoms used to be made by "primitive" materials. At one tyme condoms were made from rubber, which spawned their nickname, "rubbers". And originally rubber, like plastics, were made from plants. Rubber is the sap of trees, and plastic was made from plant cellulose. Kodak, the photography business, did some research on making plastics from trees. After all film was made from plastic.
FalconShould there be a Law?
That wind belt generator is pretty damn clever.
The Stoves BioEnergy Discussion List (web site http://www.bioenergylists.org/) is a really great resource if you are interested in the global effort to build better, cheaper, low tech cooking stoves. Appropriate technology isn't dead, it's thriving in a lot of these areas where there are limited resources, and not a lot of press coverage. This is My favorite Darfur stove: http://www.bioenergylists.org/en/taxonomy/term/909 It can be built in the refugee camp instead of shipped there, and it can easily be modified to handle charcoal. Fuel flexibility is important when there are limited resources.
The lowest of them all: politics.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
... Popular Mechanic's older, hi tech solutions.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
This is the better story than the submitted one.
TFA showed an open-source 3D printer. Hell, I cannot even get a decent 2D printer that does not con me into buying a new ink cartridge every 6 months whether I use it or not. I'm still waiting for a 2D breakthru.
Table-ized A.I.
This is a very inexpensive stove design that can be produced for around $1.
http://www.repp.org/discussiongroups/resources/stoves/apro/designp/Design%20Poster.pdf
It's basically a chimney stove, but adds insulation to keep the temperatures
higher in the combustion chamber which causes complete combustion (no smoke)
and tries to keep the cross sectional area of the chimney constant even as it flows
around the pot by making the hot gasses pass very close to the pot.
This results in higher heat transfer
These principles can be used in many different stoves. Here is one
cleverly developed by Ken Goyer which uses 6 bricks made from local
clay, fired and then wired together and can be produced for around 1 dollar. He has
produced 10,000 of these.
http://www.aiduganda.org/cgi-bin/s-mart.pl?command=showpic&currpic=Stoves/lira01454.jpg&start=0
More information can be found at the approvecho research institute
http://www.aprovecho.org/ or by googling for "rocket stove"
I cannot find an online reference for this, but I read a (dead tree) journal article a good while back about archaeologists in China who found a (relatively) well preserved oiled-silk condom in the bottom of an old latrine on the order of a few thousand years old. There was speculation on whether it was effective for anything or used more as a fetish.
Has anyone informed Halliburton of any of these things ..... I'm sure they can fluff them up and make a tidy profit.
Its not the years, its the mileage
Yet, I'd have to say that we really don't have a lot of examples that do anything but contradict that stance.
Most of the post colonial/post independence Africa was cursed by dictators supported by Western powers - which meant even the independence granted by the West was not useful in institution building, free and fair elections and so forth. Mobutu Sese Seko is a good example. South Africa became independent recently. So it is indeed a "White Mans Burden".
If you reimburse Africa and other colonized Asian countries for the plundered loot, most of the Western Europe would be bankrupt.
ANGOLA. Particularly as it relates to UNITA and FNLA. You might want to do a bit of reading on how that little fuck-up created that other raging mess that is currently known as Congo and our direct relationship to that evil son-of-a-bitch Mobutu Sese Seko as late as ten years ago. ...and that's just one long-enduring example. I mean, come on, we actively funded and armed them to the teeth to ensure they wouldn't become socialists, which, predictably, wasn't exactly successful, except in totally destroying what little development there was. Hell, even South Africa is now run by a socialist-communist coalition. So, when do we storm the beaches of Durban?
To the person who modded me Flamebait, my URL pic is for you.
Camping on quad since 1996.
Perhaps you meant this one?
LifeStraw
or with some critical comments added: Wikipedia: LifeStraw
Bye egghat
-- "As a human being I claim the right to be widely inconsistent", John Peel
Back to your hole, please!
Bite my shiny metal... oops... Nevermind!
Reduce, reuse, cycle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweating
I think that predates your example by a few years.
And honestly, that two inventions share similarities does not mean that there aren't also differences. Your "safe" doesn't really resemble the pot in pot refrigerator at all.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
http://www.allerca.com/
"The best results taking all factors into account were obtained using a cat"
Re-fixed your "fix".
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
"To the person who modded me Flamebait, my URL pic is for you."
Showing off your counting skill huh? God that bitch is ugly...
That's not true. The others you mention aren't actually "machines" at all. A machine's true purpose is to transfer work from a high-distance, low-force form into a high-force, low-distance form, or vice versa. The six simple machines are somewhat fundamental, although it could be argued that the wheel & axle are a continuous form of the lever, or that the screw is a particular 3-dimensional use of the wedge.
---don't make me break out my red pen.
The cook stove isn't a mechanical device. A bow is a mechanical source (like a spring), but no advantage, unless it's something fancy such as a compound bow, which uses pulleys to manipulate the force from the bow. A sled or boat has no mechanical advantage either, they just reduce friction.
These six simple machines can be broken down further, given that a screw is a special case of a ramp, and a wheel and axle is a special case of a lever.
Third to last paragraph in the link you posted... Clearly, Africa does need the world's help. But Africa's destiny can be changed for the better only by Africans themselves. I think that's the point the GP was trying to make and I tend to agree. Imagine I shoot you in the legs and leave you stranded in the forest... Now it's YOUR problem.
What? You're not going to blame me for the fact that it's hard to walk when you've been shot in the legs, are you?
You can't take the sky from me...
Your page totally stinks. Gives no real information, only fluff marketspeak. This is Slashdot, so consider your target audience.
http://www.appropedia.org/Hexayurt_Playa
and
http://www.appropedia.org/Hexayurt_playa_checklist
are MUCH better sources of real information.
They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.
The Title of the Posting:
You're not being pedantic, I am. The title doesn't state anything about the inventions having to be mechanical. The article summary only states that the inventions:
1) Are made using low-tech materials
2) Use low-tech assembly methods
3) Improve living conditions is third-world countries.
Just because the article came from Popular Mechanics doesn't mean the inventions need to be mechanical.
Well, do bear in mind that people arriving at the site may be people interested in things like the mass evacuation plan ("Networked Domestic Disaster Relief") or refugee use. I did put the technical stuff just one click off the home page.
But point taken, I will try and put more technical stuff back up front.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
Perhaps you could do the world a favor and go kill yourself?
Sigh. Why do people with uid's over 1M get to post anyway?
According to Robert Murphy of the US State Department's Office of African Analysis, Africa is important to "the diversification of our sources of imported oil" away from the Middle East. The U.S. currently gets 15% of its total oil imports from the African continent. By 2015, that figure will be 25%. Rather than a plan to reduce African poverty, NEPAD is a mechanism for ensuring that U.S. and other Western investments are protected.
You can't take the sky from me...
Unfortunately, the ATDT (appropriate technology design team) portion of EWB (Engineers Without Borders) is not mentioned in this article. In particular, I personally know this group of engineers in the bay area, who worked hard to improve the functionality of the Darfur stove. No credit is given to them in the article or anywhere else, as far as I can tell. However, we all know the nature of this work is selfless, which is what EWB is ultimately about. What is most important is the proliferation of such inventions wherever they may be needed.
... do we see one powering an OLPC?
It'd have to be a bigger with more, and better, magnets & coils, but that idea would be ideal for the purpose. The man's a genius.